The Wind that Moved Obelisks: An Unusual Traveler in the Imperial Power Sphere

America once sought to distance itself from Europe in order to build a new national identity. Yet Americans in the nineteenth century were driven to anchor their new national identity in the past.

by Miray Çakıroğlu

It is a sunny Saturday afternoon in Central Park. As New Yorkers enjoy the unseasonably favorable late October weather, the oldest inhabitant of the park stands solemnly in one corner against a background of trees. The Egyptian obelisk, known as Cleopatra’s Needle, has stood in the park, across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for …